The Eight Music Videos That Totally Missed the Point

by Theta1138August 02, 2010 at 6:00PM
|
Views: 1,652

4. "Total Eclipse of the Heart" by Bonnie Tyler

Source: Paul Bergen/Redferns/Getty Images

We know that Spike.com readers, being manly men who do manly things, have never heard of this melodramatic song. Basically, it's the most drawn-out, painful song about a break-up that's ever been written. And it's very cathartic to cry to it.

We're told.

Which makes it ideal for a video set at a boys' boarding school where Bonnie Tyler is a teacher who makes them assume various sexual personas in her dreams because she's ragingly horny or something.

Seriously, who the hell came up with this video, and where are they currently awaiting trial for statutory rape charges? The video's famous for being weird and stupid, but the meaning becomes all too clear at the finale. Banging your way through a high school is not the way to get over a bad breakup, Bonnie Tyler, and not just because not being able to go within 200 yards of a school can screw up your life more than you'd think.

Not that we'd know anything about that.

3. "Leave Me Alone" by Michael Jackson

Source: Mick Hutson/Redferns/Getty Images

It's a pretty straightforward song: a man is tired of a woman draining his finances and his energy, and he tells her to go away. It's basically a country song, except performed by the whitest black man to ever walk the Earth.

To be fair, it's reasonable to assume that a song called "Leave Me Alone" by the most famous entertainer on the entire planet is about his near-constant press harassment, especially since it's really, really hard to imagine Michael Jackson having sex with anybody, forget a woman. Brilliant he may be, but macho he never was.

Still, what's with the amusement park built around the gigantic Michael Jackson? It's not a song about his ego, either.

2. "Today" by Smashing Pumpkins

Source: Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images Entertainment/Getty Images

"Today" is probably the sweetest, happiest song Billy Corgan ever wrote. It happens to be about suicide. Although after listening to anything from Zwan, Billy Corgan committing suicide does seem to be a cheering thought.

Sure, suicide was kind of a no-go topic on MTV, even now, so that was kind of off the table, although it probably wouldn't have killed the director to maybe drop a hint or two about the real nature of the song.

Instead we've got Corgan driving an ice-cream truck, picking up the rest of the band and painting it wacky colors. Why? Because it's a happy song, right?

"Lovefool" is a song about a woman trying desperately to deny her relationship is falling apart and that her lover is disinterested. And it's not exactly implicit about it, either. Remember that chorus you couldn't stop singing for weeks? Notice that it's not about a woman demanding her lover actually love her, but just to lie to her so she feels better? Look through the verses, and you've basically got the story of a woman trying to keep her relationship together even though she knows it's not happening.

So it's a love song, right? Let's make it about lost lovers pining for each other! That makes sense! Let's strand some douche on an island and have a woman yearn after him! And let's put that hot blonde chick in the bottle that he put his note into! That'll totally make sense.

What makes this really bizarre is that there already was a video for this song that kind of makes the lyrical content a lot more explicit. As in, the boyfriend is kind of a disgusting perv.

Then again, we guess ending on that note would have been a little too profound for record labels. They kind of avoid thought, as a rule.